The Ancient Maya City: Anthropogenic Landscapes, Settlement Archaeology, and Caracol, Belize
The Ancient Maya City: Anthropogenic Landscapes, Settlement Archaeology, and Caracol, Belize
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古玛雅城市：人类景观、聚落考古学和伯利兹卡拉科尔
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发表时间：
2016
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通讯作者：
Diane Z. Chase
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作者：
Arlen F. Chase;Diane Z. Chase
玛雅考古学在绘制和记录遗址平面图和边界方面投入了大量精力。通过将激光雷达技术应用于古代玛雅景观，这项研究取得了特别进展，它可以更容易地记录地形和对地表所做的修改——考古项目很少大规模绘制地图的特征。结合 30 多年的考古研究，激光雷达使我们能够确定卡拉科尔的时空边界和景观变化，并展示该遗址如何通过使用连接到广泛的太阳能堤道系统的嵌入式管理节点作为城市运作。对玛雅地区聚落数据的比较研究表明，古代玛雅人至少有两种城市。在一种城市化形式中，例如在卡拉科尔，可持续农业实践可以在城市范围内进行；在玛雅城市化的另一种形式中，聚落对于可持续农业的实践来说过于密集和紧凑，这意味着主要农田必须存在于城市边界之外。这一结论极大地增进了我们对古代热带城市化的理解。
Maya archaeology has seen substantial effort invested in mapping and recording site plans and boundaries. This research has been particularly advanced through the application of LiDAR technology to the ancient Maya landscape, which has more easily permitted the registration of both the topography and the modifications made to the land surface – features only rarely mapped at large-scale by archaeological projects. When combined with over 30 years of archaeological research, LiDAR permits us to determine Caracol’s spatial and temporal boundaries and landscape modifications, as well as to demonstrate how the site operated as a city through the use of embedded administrative nodes connected to an extensive solar causeway system. A comparative review of settlement data in the Maya region indicates that the ancient Maya minimally had two kinds of cities. In one form of urbanism, such as at Caracol, sustainable agricultural practices could be carried out within the boundaries of the city; in the other form of Maya urbanism, the settlement was too dense and compact for the practice of sustainable agriculture, meaning that primary agricultural fields must have existed outside the city boundaries. This conclusion significantly advances our understanding of tropical urbanism in antiquity.